


the only house that's not on fire (yet)

by paopuleaf



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, a lot of bullshit about how death works in blaseball because its A Lot !, background luis/tot clark and tillman/declan, or - a bunch of rambles in a character study trenchcoat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26866549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paopuleaf/pseuds/paopuleaf
Summary: season nine, day ten. they step up to the bat and wait. there’s a strange familiarity, through it all, as their eyes rake over the opposing team, sizing them up. it doesn’t feel like anything from blaseball. it feels -hungry.-a series of loosely connected scenes focusing on one luis acevedo, vampire-vlocaloid and everything in-between.
Relationships: Luis Acevedo & The Baltimore Crabs
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	the only house that's not on fire (yet)

luis hums, puts their hand up to the sun, bell tied around their wrist chiming softly. they watch it through the digital, stare straight into it, unblinking and uncaring. it’s nearly blinding, but it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t burn their skin, hair turning to dust at the edges - no, nothing happens, nothing at all. being in the daylight is _weird._ being unaffected by it is even weirder. (how long has it been? years compared to decades compared to - well. it’s just the smallest of fractions.)

“huh,” they say. lower their hand. their eyes stay fixed on the sun in that distant sky for a few more moments, before they tear away, focusing instead on the bay. water deep. luis’ heard the stories, already - they know what’s underneath, or at least, they know what they’ve been told. hopefully one day they’ll go down there with them, to see. “weird.” 

everything about this is weird. nice, though. a change of pace. the crabs were okay with their - _self,_ encouraging, even, and they’ve got the opportunity to grow. they slide down the rail back onto the dock, and puts a hand on the side of their neck, leaning into it a little. there’s a heartbeat there, now - isn’t that odd? artificial, beating steady, steady/steady/steady.

foreign. they haven’t had one in _centuries._

it’s a sign they’re still alive, alive-ish, and breathing - _ish._ the line between alive/dead is _incredibly_ fucking blurry, when incineration means death - is the only means to death - and someone’s come back - and nobody’s really come back, not fully. (everyone knows about the debt, now.) it doesn’t help that they haven’t really been human-alive in a while, so… what’s the measurement? where do you draw the line? 

does it start with an artificial heartbeat? does it start with the illusion of a hologram taking a breath? does it start with cold skin, hard light, wisps of smoke clinging to those who’re damned? does it start in a shell, out of a shell, the crack of light as a bird peck/peck/pecks away? does it start with a pile of ash, a rogue umpire, a final first stand? where’s the line? where/when/how does it _end?_

luis doesn’t know. they’re content with that, at least. spent enough time contemplating it before the whole vlocaloid schtick, before blaseball made it _infinitely_ more complicated. they’re somewhere between alive and dead- but they’re not human-dead yet, so they’ll stick around. keep playing ball, keep fulfilling their contact, keep holding on, keep talking/walking/ _living._

their form gets staticky at the edges, and they pull themselves together. now’s not the time for introspection, philosophy, all of that shit. they’ve got a team to get back to. a championship to celebrate with them. oh- weren’t they going to-? right. one more surprise.

“hey!”

they show up at the bus with a new forearm, chitinous shell stretching from right below their left elbow all the way down to the sharp claw replacing their hand. shifting, like every bit of their appearance, now, but fitting. it’s greeted with approving grins that they respond to in kind, sliding into the seat in front of kennedy loser and tot fox and hanging over the back to chatter with the rest of the team.

they’re alive enough to be here, and that’s good enough for them.

-

the house that’s hosting the championship party is packed within an hour. (luis picked up something or another about it being one of tillman’s parents’ homes, but the bastard was sitting at the back of the bus and they were _very_ involved in a conversation with kennedy about tarot towards the front.) they call the garages, because god are the crabs nice but they _really want to see their boyfriend_ , and tillman and dreamy get the firefighters over, and a couple calls later to the former crabs and they’ve got the entirety of the blaseball league in there.

_that_ party’s a blur. luis remembers about half of it; the other half is in their memory banks _somewhere,_ but they like the authenticity of forgetting. players end up leaving at various points, until the house isn’t as crowded and there’s no real teams, left, besides the crabs- just people fending off hangovers and passed out on various couches. there’s a smaller party, then, that night, and _that’s_ the one luis finds themself actively participating in, swinging up from where they’re draped across tot clark to follow the sound of cheering.

tillman’s in the middle of the kitchen, standing - well, _standing’s_ a strong word for having most of his weight on declan and leaning on one foot - in the middle with a key and a can of beer in his hands. 

“hurry it up, henderson,” somebody calls - rivers, luis thinks, from the firefighters, but before they can look, tillman stabs the key into the can and- 

oh, holy shit, he’s really going for it, huh? failing _miserably_ at it, too. declan tosses a towel in his face, and tillman drops the half-full-still-dripping can in the garbage, wiping off his arms with a scowl. “nobody saw shit,” he says, but- luis is about ninety percent sure at least four people got it on camera. (they will not confirm or deny being one of those people, even as the red dot blinking in the corner of their vision finally goes away.)

there’s some claps, a little bit of laughter, and luis watches as tillman clearly fights off his own grin. “c’mon, declan, let’s get out of this hole. don’t need it.” declan snorts, but doesn’t protest, letting himself be dragged upstairs and presumably to some bedroom up there. 

**> open gc “we are from chiclawgo”**

[ **hard light luis** sent a video: _clown.mp4_ ]

[ **rivers** has saved _clown.mp4_ ]

[ **winner** has saved _clown.mp4_ ]

[ **Tot Fox** has saved _clown.mp4_ ]

**declan** : yoooooooo

[ **declan** has saved _clown.mp4_ ]

**tilly** : fuck yuo

 **hard light luis** : i have done nothing wrong in my life ever

the crowd begins to disperse after tillman leaves, and luis heads over to the counter, sitting on one of the stools. they’d absolutely _love_ to try their hand at shotgunning again - can’t be worse than tillman, at least - but vlocaloids, unfortunately, weren’t made for drinking. or eating. instead, they settle for watching axel cardenas make milkshakes, expression as unreadable as always. (luis was there when wheeler was incinerated. they’re not sure if axel has any hard feelings towards the garages, but they stay quiet anyway.)

“... you want something?” 

“huh?” luis blinks. or not. axel’s looking at them - _still_ unreadable, but there’s something like expectation there. “oh, i can’t eat. part of the whole… hologram-ish thing. thanks for the offer.” _has he made everyone something?_ they look over the drinks left on the counter - a couple cracked red cups, half-full milkshakes, a coffee with one sugar left untouched, a few waters, here and there. “have you been here the whole time?”

axel shrugs. “pretty much.” he leaves it at that, and yeah, fair. luis stays for a few more moments, eyes still tracing the cups, before they stand up. “leaving?”

“yeah. gonna get back to the rest of the team- feel free to come over?" axel doesn't respond. luis hums, before mimicking his earlier shrug. "see ya!” they wave with their claw, and axel gives a half-salute, half-wave back before returning to the milkshakes. god, they really wish they could drink things. like - milkshakes! or blood. stupid fucking- contract. 

“i want to demolish capitalism,” they announce as they flop back onto tot clark, and half the room calls out in agreement, an echo of “fuck capitalism” across the board. loser looks up from where he’s shuffling a not-tarot deck of cards (for what looks to be a game of ers between him, forrest and tot fox, plus nagomi’s shell - but who knows), HENDERSON tattoo barely visible underneath the sleeve of his t-shirt.

“we can demolish capitalism after the party, probably,” he reassures. the logic of this is sound, in everyone’s half-there states, and luis settles, closing their eyes. 

they don’t need to sleep, but the sentiment is still there. (the crabs won the championships, the entirety of the league at the party - they’re exhausted, but content. this is good. this is- good. the worries of next season, incinerations, everything - they can wait.)

-

they don’t end up demolishing capitalism before the next season, unfortunately. but - 

season nine, day ten. they step up to the bat and wait. there’s a strange familiarity, through it all, as their eyes rake over the opposing team, sizing them up. it doesn’t feel like anything from blaseball. it feels - 

hungry. 

they remember what they said about missing blood, a little. the arena’s noise drops to near silence, buzzing, as the drip/drip/drip echoes in their ears. the weather is blooddrain. their fangs itch. everything feels so, so right, so familiar - 

blink. one step. blink. two steps. blink. someone takes a step back. they don’t know who. the sun shines reddish-orange through their hologram.

blink. 

_the blooddrain gurgled! luis acevedo siphoned some of vito kravitz's hitting ability!_

blink. they’re back at the bat. something drips/drips/drips, and they wipe it off. oh so familiar. oh so _right._

(this is what the others see: 

one moment, luis acevedo is standing, ready, one claw and one hand gripping the bat. the next, they’re beside vito kravitz, and nobody sees what happens - not in enough detail - but the way that kravitz’s hand comes away red from his neck says enough. he doesn’t even have any blood, they murmur, but the blooddrain doesn’t care - luis acevedo doesn’t care - blaseball doesn’t care, not about that. and -

the next, there’s red/red/red, the shell of a crab almost as big as the arena, flickering around the edges in that computer-glitch way that can only mean luis, and the next - )

luis flashes the team a grin, eyes bright/bright/brighter, bat tapping against the ground as they wait. their form is staticky around the edges, tinged with red, and there's little sparks flying off them in waves. tap tap tap. "how'd they do that? do vlocaloids need blood? how-" someone murmurs in the crowd, and of _course_ they hear, tuning into everything/everyone all at once.

"what, like it's _hard_?" the voice echoes with too/too/too many pitches, volumes, everything. enough to throw off the opposing team for a moment, and their grin only grows wider. "claws up!" 

the bat feels right in their hands, more than it did before. 

the crabs win the game.

-

luis is a lot of things - 

but right now they’re a vlocaloid, and a vampire, and a crab, and a friend, and a partner, and -

_alive_.

and that’s good enough for them.

**Author's Note:**

> i love one (1) vlocaloid  
> not pictured : declan and kennedy both set different screenshots from the clown.mp4 video as their phone lockscreens  
> death and time in blaseball are both really interesting to me as concepts, but i only get into death in this one - time is an Entire Different Ballpark (ha)  
> you can find me on twitter @ paopuleaves, or on tumblr @ rylron, if you use either of those hell platforms. otherwise, i'm pretty active in the crabitat for my crabs folks ! thanks for readin


End file.
